my friend kirsten wrote the following piece for usa-today.
she’s my hero.
december 2, 2003
by kirsten powers
while the media breathlessly coo over president bush’s latest stunt to distract americans from the casualties and chaos in iraq, it is left to the democrats to hold him accountable.
it is smart political strategy as well as democrats’ patriotic duty to challenge the president repeatedly for lying to get us into a war he has no plan to get us out of. the conventional wisdom that says otherwise is the same that once said howard dean’s anti-war position would hurt him.
according to a recent usa today/cnn/gallup poll, approval of the u.s. handling of iraq has plummeted from 80% in april to just 42% in november. watch that number, because it reflects americans’ growing concern about increasing deaths and disorder in iraq instead of the “”cakewalk”” we were promised by the bush administration.
support for the war has been based on a shell game of shifting rationales. the more democrats talk about that, the worse it is for president bush.
⥠he said we would find weapons of mass destruction; we haven’t.
⥠he said iraq tried to buy enriched uranium from niger; it didn’t.
⥠he said iraqi oil would pay for reconstruction; americans have been stuck with an $87 billion bill at a time of lost jobs and a ballooning deficit.
⥠we were told we would be greeted as “”liberators;”” instead, more than 400 americans have died, many due to poor postwar planning against guerrilla attacks.
⥠he said “”mission accomplished”” seven months ago, and in november he gave us the highest monthly casualty rate of the war ã‘ losing 75 american soldiers ã‘ and gruesome somalia-style killings.
⥠the president drew a false relationship between terrorism and the war to scare americans into supporting it, when the real threat is osama bin laden. remember him?
bush has isolated us from the world and frittered away the goodwill we received after 9/11, leaving the united states to endure nearly all of the costs of the war ã‘ in money and in lives.
and like the medicare and energy bills, the war has been a bonanza of corporate treats and profiteering for bush’s and vice president cheney’s republican cronies.it is up to the democrats to keep talking to the american people about what was done wrong in iraq and to keep pressure on the bush administration to address the critical issues we face there.
while it was refreshing to see the president take a trip that didn’t involve raising money for his re-election, the soldiers don’t need bush serving up anything but a plan to protect them and get them home.the democratic candidate who communicates that message the best will be the one americans choose. ãŠ